Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/257

Rh Betsy blushed and whipped up the grey colt.

Occasionally Betsy came to Mill House to see her little friend and Spot always managed to have business at the house on those occasions. Sometimes he even suggested to Rebecca that he should drive her over to the Bollings. More and more did he realize that Betsy was the girl for him, although he knew she was far removed from his family ideal. There was nothing of the aristocrat about Betsy, but what did he, Spottswood Taylor, want with an aristocratic wife? He had heard too much talk of such things from his sisters and their friends, chosen because of their blue blood. He wished he knew how his father felt about it. Tom, who every one knew was his father's favorite, had married where he had loved, regardless of family tradition, and his father had promptly disinherited him. How could he, Spottswood, hope for greater leniency from his father, in case his choice of a wife displeased the old gentleman?

The whole county knew to what depths of degradation Rolfe Bolling had sunk. The fact that in his veins was as good Cavalier blood as flowed in Virginia made him the more contemptible in the eyes of his neighbors. There was no denying, however, that Rolfe Bolling's children would have done credit to the worthiest of sires. In the few months that Philip had been home